The two most common methods for entering the paper records from financial transactions into financial applications are ‘manual data entry with physical record storing’ and ‘manual data entry with digital record storing’.
An example of ‘manual data entry with physical record storing’ is a small business owner who collects all of his paper records for a period of time, manually enters relevant accounting data from the records into a financial application and then stores the paper records in an orderly fashion in file folders.
Another example is a business traveler who collects all paper records until the end of his travel, enters the relevant accounting information into a spreadsheet or expense reporting application, sends the paper receipts by mail and then submits the electronic expense report via email or a data network to his company for reimbursement.
‘Manual data entry with digital record storing’ is primarily used by large corporations. A common example is a business traveler who collects all paper records until the end of his travel, then enters and submits accounting relevant information into an expense report application. The application then generates a bar code that identifies the expense report. The employee faxes all receipts together in one single fax to a digital storing system using the bar coded confirmation page as a fax cover sheet. An optical recognition system interfacing the digital storing system recognizes the bar code on the cover sheet and identifies the expense report to which the receipts relate.—The receipt images are automatically associated with the correct expense report.
A less common but existing method is automated data entry with digital record storing. A financial record is scanned into an application able to automatically read all accounting relevant data from the record using Optical Character Recognition Systems. Because of the time consuming initial setup for each record layout, this method is only economical for high volumes of a limited number of different record layouts. As this method can not guaranty one hundred percent correct character recognition, all receipts need to be checked manually to insure that they were processed correctly.
In some existing methods of entering information from financial transaction receipts in to an application, the person who enters them into the application is not the same person as the one who was connected with the transaction noted upon the receipt. Alternatively, the person who enters the data into the application is using two different methods/devices to do so. For example: A business traveler collects receipts during travel and gives them to an accounting department. An assistant scans all of the receipts. An accountant looks up each receipt and enters a date, amount, debit account number (directly related to expense type) and credit account number (related to payment type and/or the identity of the business traveler himself) into a financial application. A second example is: A business traveler collecting receipts during travel. At the end of the travel, the traveler enters a user ID (usually via application login), date, amount and expense type (debit account number) into a device. To digitalize the receipts, the traveler needs to change the device using a scanner or facsimile. Both devices are NOT personal devices. Therefore the traveler needs to use barcode stickers or barcodes fax cover pages to identify himself or the related expense report.
Documents with some relevance to this subject include: U.S. Pat. No. 6,032,137; US Patent Application Publication No. 2004/0028295; U.S. Pat. No. 5,910,988; U.S. Pat. No. 6,397,194; U.S. Pat. No. 6,816,608; US Patent Application Publication No. 2003/0158819; and “Phones with Eyes,” The Economist (print edition), Mar. 10, 2005.
Until now, there has been no method available for ‘manual data entry with digital record storing’ where the manual data entry and the digital image storing can be conducted at any time and almost any location. Exemplary embodiments of the present invention combine the vast availability of mobile communication networks and programmable mobile handheld devices with integrated or interfacing digital cameras or scanners. Relevant accounting data is allowed to be stored with a digital image of a financial record at the time a paper record is received. This data can then automatically be enriched and transformed into an accounting record and without further manual intervention imported into a financial application. An administrative person can check and approve any accounting record instantaneously as each record is associated with exactly one receipt image.